Q&A with the Pinker Tones

Imagine taking the world's coolest lounge sounds, putting them in a blender,
straining them through a filter of old Deee-Lite songs, and then spicing them
with pure Barcelona hipster-style electronica...that's about the recipe for The
Pinker Tones' music. We caught up with the duo and asked
them, basically, how they got tán cool.

Latina.com: Why the name? And why en inglés?

Mister Furia: We were born from an international scene, and our spirit is
pretty eclectic so we felt like the English name fit us. Also, it reminded us of
old detective movies, you know, like The Pink Panther, and the Pinkerton agency
(a famous old-time detective agency that organized the first Secret Service
during the Civil War and hunted down Jesse James' gang.)

Latina.com: Prof. Manso, tell us about your mom putting her accordion on
her belly before you were born and letting you "play" it with your movements.
Did any recordings survive?

Furia: Of course, like everything you read on the internet, that's true!

Manso: Seriously, it is true. It's a family story and it did happen. But
sadly, they never taped it.

Latina.com: Besides that early exposure to the accordion, where did your
super-eclectic musical influences come from?

Furia: A lot of times, we are so busy that we barely have time to listen to
music at all. Fortunately, we have friends who are huge music consumers and they
are like our music dealers, they let us know what's going on in the world
musically. We've been influenced by jazz, pop, rock, and 1980s music...really a
little of everything.

Latina.com: You've traveled all over and your music has been heard in over
100 countries. What cool music have you encountered in other places?

Furia: In Shanghai, we discovered this amazing electropop group, B6, and in
Russia we found Elzzapoppinzz, who are like an electronic version of the
Supremes, with three girls singing. A big part of our new remix album was to
work with all these artists we've met during our travels over the past two
years. Of course we also worked with the Latin electronica artists for this
album--Kinky, Nortec, MIS--and we had the honor to be able to work on a remix
with Soda Stereo.

Latina.com: Wow, sounds like a lot of people. How long is this album
anyway?

Manso: It has 38 remixes. In the U.S., a special album will be released that
only has some of the songs, but in Latin America and Europe, the whole album
will be available. For the U.S. album, we tried to pick our favorites, which of
course was really hard.

Latina.com: When we hear "remix album" a lot of times, we assume it's just
a gimmick with the same songs made longer. How different will these songs be
from the originals on your last album, Million Colour Revolution?

Manso: They will all be really different. For some of them, you won't be able
to recognize the original song at all.

Latina.com: Barcelona is so cool and it hosts a zillion great music
festivals. What do you like best about your home city?

Furia: The mix of cultures. Like New York, there are people there from all
over the world, and sounds from everywhere. It helps us to find new ideas.

Latina.com: Do you watch The Chicas Project, since you created the theme
song?

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